Zest lime by using knife or peeler and cutting off thin pieces of lime peel. | Source

Tip

For the best zest, use a fresh lime with an undamaged peel. Peel only the outside colored part (the white part is more bitter). Wash the lime carefully before making lime zest.

Microplane Zester

Use for Garnish

Lime Zest Garnish | Source

This type of zest is the most decorative. It makes long, fine. curling strips.

Hold lime in one hand and zester in the other.

Put the sharp edge of the zester at the top of the lime and pull down while pressing slightly.

You should see long, thin strips of peel curling off the end of zester. If not, press harder.

Continue to pull the zester down the lime until you have all you need.

Grater

Grater zest | Source

Quickest method and the one which makes the smallest pieces of zest. Grated lime zest is best in baking.

Use a fine grater, with small holes.

Hold grater at an angle, and press the lime across it until the colored part of the lime has come off. Don't get too much of the white portion of the peel because it is bitter.

Continue turning and grating the lime until you have enough.

Peeler

Best for when you want to make candied peel or for larger pieces of lime zest.

Hold peeler in one hand and lime in the other. Pull the peeler across the lime skin until the top part of the peel comes off in a slice.

You can use a knife to cut the peel into strips.

Knife

Takes just a few minutes longer but works just fine if you don't have a zester, peeler or grater. In this method, the peel will generally remain flat and not curl, which can be useful for some decorative purposes. You can use this method or the peeler one for Candied Lime Peel

Hold the lime down on a counter.

Take the knife and cut off the thinnest layer of peel you can remove (try not to get too much of the bitter white part).

Put the peel slice on a cutting mat and cut it into strips. You can cut it again in the other direction to dice it if you want to use fine pieces for baking.

Substitutes

Don't have a fresh lime? Fresh lime zest has the most flavor, but here are 5 lime zest equivalents. You can substitute any one of these for the others.

1 tea. fresh lime zest

2 Tb. fresh lime juice

1 tea. dried lime zest

1/2 tea. lime extract

2 tea. grated candied peel

Using Dried Peel

Is Dried Lime Zest all right to use? Sure! Dried lime peel won't look as good in garnish and may not have quite as fresh a flavor, but dried peel will definitely give good flavor in baked goods and cooked dishes.

Where can I get dried lime peel? Sometimes dried orange peel is available in the spice section of a grocery store, but I've not seen dried lime peel there. You might find it at a specialty Indian market, or you can find it on Amazon.

How do I use dried lime peel? Use the same amount of dried lime peel as fresh in recipes. A bonus is that, if you look at the lime flavor substitutes chart, you can see that you can use dried lime zest in recipes instead of another lime flavoring. That is helpful if you don't have fresh limes or juice on hand. It wouldn't work for a key lime pie, but it can be useful when lime is just one of many other ingredients.

Storing

Often, you will have lime zest left over. Here is how you can store it:

Refrigerator: Store it in a Zip-lock bag (press out air) in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.

Freezer: Put it in the freezer for a month in bag or plastic container. Frozen zest loses some color and flavor but is fine for baking.

Dried: Lime zest can also be dried in a dehydrator, or in your oven at 250 degrees. Then you can store it with your spices indefinitely.

8 Ways to Use

Outside of recipes calling for lime zest, you can use it as a garnish or flavoring to pump up the flavor of many recipes. Here are some of my favorites:

Drinks: Use a pinch on top of whipped cream, ice cream or lime drinks.

Fruit Salad: Keep salads fresh and add to taste with 1/2 tea. zest, 1/4 cup lime juice, and 1/4 cup honey mixed and stirred in with salad (especially helpful if you have apples or bananas in your salad).

Candied Lime Peel Recipe

Have some leftover lime peels? Try making your own Candied Lime Peel using this easy recipe. You can use Candied Lime Peel as:

a snack (as is or dipped in chocolate)

a garnish

a substitute for lime zest

Rate it!

Rate Me!

5 stars from 2 ratings of Candied Lime Peel

Cook Time

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 30 min

Ready in: 40 min

Yields: 1 cup Candied Lime Peel

Ingredients

1/4 water

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup lime peel

Instructions

Use a peeler to take strips of peel off lime and cut into thin strips with a knife. Put in sausepan and cover with water. Bring water to boil and simmer for a couple of minutes. Drain water from the peel. Repeat 1-2 more times for less bitter peel.

In a saucepan, put in 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar. Add peel and bring to a boil. boil until all syrup is absorbed and peel is transparent.

Take peel from syrup and roll in white sugar or powdered sugar.

Candied lime peel can be stored in a cupboard. You can use it as a substitute for lime zest. Use 2 tea. of candied peel (cut up fine) for 1 tea. zest.

Questions & Answers

Questions must be on-topic, written with proper grammar usage, and understandable to a wide audience.

Connect with us

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, delishably.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)

Google AdSense Host API

This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Facebook Login

You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Maven

This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)

We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.

Conversion Tracking Pixels

We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.

Statistics

Author Google Analytics

This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)

Comscore

ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)

Amazon Tracking Pixel

Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)